Admin of Prez Stompy Foot reduces Putin to…. snickers?

Regarding the invasion, er, “uncontested arrival” of Crimea, I read a couple of news reports that began “Despite a phone call and warnings from President Obama…” Excuse me, but I don’t think “Despite” is the right word here. I would likely say that “Due to a phone and warnings from President Obama….” because it has been obvious from Day 1 that Putin is unimpressed and bored with President Obama and his entire administration. Some of us have known since November 2008 this was the direction our nation and the world was taking. Exposing your neck to your competitors may work with a pack of wolves but it does not work with world leaders, who do not observe wolf-pack rules. Putin wants power, not evolutionary symbolism intended to keep peace among a small group of animals.

The ever smooth-talking Secretary of State John Kerry gave the Russians a history lesson. http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/03/kerrys-purple-haze.php You, Putin you, you’re not acting properly: “It’s really 19th century behavior in the twenty-first century.” Kerry later switches to social psychologist and said Putin was acting out of “weakness” not strength. Then he threatened to stop buying Russian caviar and use only Norwegian caviar at wife Teresa Heinz-Kerry’s tony parties. Okay, I might have made up that last part.

Please don’t misunderstand; do I think we should go to war with Russia over Crimea? No. Might this had happened no matter who was president? Maybe. But it is a failure for the shocked foreign policy neophytes of the Obama administration and their naïve and smug “smart diplomacy” and “smart power,” which was to bring revolutionary results far superior to dummy Bush and the strong American military presence that represented Ronald Reagan and so many other presidents, including Democrats such as Kennedy. The Obama administration bumbling indecision also shows the limits of political ideology over some real diplomats and foreign policy analysts. The world no longer looks at the United States for leadership in a crisis, which was a goal of Obama. Wonder how it feels now that it’s happening, President Obama, et al? This headline is the American future under the likes of Obama/Hillary, just substitute “United States” for “Ukraine” and “Russia” could also be “Iran” or “China. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/03/03/ukraine-outmoded-and-underfunded-military-no-match-for-russia/

No one in this administration evidently knows any history other than revisionist history which condemns Western Judeo-Christian white civilization as imperialist evil and sees most everyone else as victims. Putin seems unimpressed by politically correct metaphors.

You’ll also note that this is a Russian power grab that involves access to sea ports and energy, the real energy of reliable fossil fuels and not that liberal feel-good pseudo-energy of “renewables.” In the above McFarland article, she points out why this feels like the Jimmy Carter 70’s to some of us:

Russia, flush with new-found wealth from oil exports, expands its military reach and political influence abroad. A war-weary America slashes defense spending and retreats from the world. The president embarks on a massive government-subsidized program to develop alternative energy to replace fossil fuels.

Pundits cluck about America in retreat, and point to the rise of an Asian economic superpower. That’s the world circa 1976, but it sounds like quotes ripped from today’s headlines.